30 questions for all stuck at home on a winter's day

Dan Rodricks

IWOULD LIKE to start off today's column by thanking all the intrepid men and women involved in the production and delivery of today's newspaper. If you can read this -- and I don't mean online through Baltimoresun.com -- hug your carrier. I would further like to thank the three guys who stopped in the middle of my street yesterday at noon to give my snow-stuck motor vehicle a push into a position out of the way of traffic and the city snowplow that will -- in my dreams -- make it down my street some day this month. Good snows make good neighbors.

Thinking caps, everyone

This is as good a time as any -- maybe the best -- for the Dan Rodricks Winter Day Quiz. Answers will appear in Wednesday's newspaper. (How's that for optimism?) Please, no cheating, no looking up stuff, and please don't call the nice people at the Pratt for answers. Just sit there at the kitchen table and test your knowledge of Baltimore and other points here in the Greater Patapsco Drainage Basin.

1. Unscramble these letters to get to a Pulaski Highway delicacy: T F B E I P E.

2. His wife, Sharon, is the author of Safe at Home, a book about the life of a baseball wife.

3. He coached the Skipjacks here, and the Italian Olympic hockey team.

4. Homeland mom of children's book author and illustrator Mitra Modarressi.

5. The O-nly baseball player named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" of 2000.

6. The year I-83 linked Baltimore and Harrisburg.

7. Eighties rocker who played a beatnik in Hairspray, the John Waters film.

8. Born Mark Andrews, this "Thong" singer got his start with impromptu performances at The Fudgery in Harborplace.

9. In the 1958 All-Star Game played in Baltimore, Orioles pitcher Billy O'Dell retired the last nine National League batters. Name them. (Just kidding! This is a freebie -- and, for those of you who might have forgotten it, a repeat of a question from the 1994 Winter Quiz. They were, in the order O'Dell put them down, Johnny Logan, Willie Mays, Lee Walls, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Frank Thomas, Bill Mazeroski and Del Crandall.) Bonus: Name the Hall-of-Famers in that group.

10. His songs include "The Streets of Baltimore" and "Farewell Clonbur."

11. The year I-95 connected Wilmington and Baltimore. Hint: It was the same year the General Assembly voted to phase out slot machines in Maryland.

12. Without looking this originated-in-Baltimore word up in the Oxford, what's an "espantoon"?

13. The governor of Maryland wants an expert to study slot machines. What Baltimore radio sports announcer of fond memory said: "You know what an expert is, don't ya? A guy from outta town."

14. Another word scramble, this one Diner food: G S N F V Y E D I A R A R.

15. Downtown Baltimore gets nuked in this Morgan Freeman film.

16. A Raven: played linebacker at Air Force as a freshman before transferring to Brigham Young and becoming a tight end.

17. Its Latin name is Callinectes sapidus. Come now: In Maryland, if you eat it, you should know it.